The present invention relates to a protective cap for dispensers. More in particular, the present invention relates to a protective cap for dispensers of liquids under pressure such as atomisers, micro-pumps or similar devices with a pressure-operated plunger. By way of example, dispensers of the type described above are applied to containers of perfumes, lotions, detergents or cosmetics in general.
The invention further relates to a container containing said cap.
Currently known are containers lacking a cap and provided with a spray dispenser in which the dispenser can be brought to assume a blocking position by rotating an external actuating element around a longitudinal axis of the container. Containers of this type, described for example in EP Patent 952892, have the drawback of requiring complex articulated mechanisms able to achieve the locking of the plunger of the dispenser as a result of the rotation of the actuator member. Moreover, the operation of containers of the type described above requires using two hands, one to grip the container and the other one to rotate the actuator member. Hence, they are unsuitable to be operated in situations of constrained freedom of movement, e.g. when the user has one hand busy as is often the case whilst driving a vehicle, whilst writing or in other similar situations.
Also widely used are protective caps in the form of removable hoods, able to be coupled in snap-on fashion on a container at the dispenser to prevent impacts or accidental pressures on the plunger of the dispenser from causing undesired spills of the product present in the container. Such hoods generally have cylindrical conformation and completely envelop the dispenser.
These hoods, widely used, have the drawback of remaining uncoupled from the container during the dispensing operation and hence they can easily be misplaced. Moreover, in this case too the removal of such hoods requires use of two hands, one to grip the container and the other to separate the hood from the container. Hence, they too are unsuitable to be operated in situations of constrained freedom of movement for the user.
Also known are protective caps, of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,790, stably connected to a container and pivoting around an axis of rotation to reach a dispensing position in which they allow the product present in the container to be dispensed. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,790 describes a cap that can be coupled directly to an outlet mouth of a container, and the container is of the type able to dispense the product by the crushing of the container itself, and not by pressure exerted on a plunger. Disadvantageously, this cap is therefore not applicable to dispensers having a plunger for dispensing a liquid under pressure.
Lastly, from the document U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,084, a dispenser is known which has a dispensing plunger actuated by a translator that can be pressed directly by a user, and equipped with a flip-top cap pivotable on the top of the container between a position covering the dispenser and a position closing the dispenser. Disadvantageously, the complexity of this dispenser requires complex operations for mounting it on the respective container, linked mostly to the need to align the lid with a respective hinging portion of the container. Moreover, the plunger is able to dispense the product along its translation direction, whilst the dispenser does not seem suited to dispense the product in all directions, e.g. a horizontal direction.